Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Automated car steering demonstration with Arduino and LabView

For something interesting to spark your imagination, consider the following project by Instructables user "NicTanguay" and others. They've created a simple robotic car controlled via an Arduino that uses intelligence and control via a PC and LabView software to allow the car to follow a white line "on the road" - detected by a simple webcam above the car. And thus a somewhat primitive self-driving solution - for example:

It's an interesting example of the synergy between an Arduino and an external PC... as the Arduino makes an excellent interface between computing systems and physical hardware - and the PC brings the raw processing power required for the intelligence. Check out theInstructable page for more information. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

If you found the project above interesting - but not sure how to start with Arduino - then the best way to learn is with our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:

The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects!